


An Audition of Sorts

by LogicalParafox



Series: Watts' Defection [2]
Category: RWBY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicalParafox/pseuds/LogicalParafox
Summary: Salem decides to acquire a ruthless doctor.
Series: Watts' Defection [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016158
Kudos: 7





	An Audition of Sorts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OnyxMidnight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxMidnight/gifts).



> A prompt from my friend and a gift for her.

Watts paced his lab, seething with outrage. That benighted cyborg had chosen Polendina’s inferior proposal for defensive systems, despite the entire structure being built on Arthur’s own work. Where was the logic? The sense?

Mantle’s security network would be a handful of disorganized soldiers without his genius and now Polendina’s single unit was meant to serve as what? Some sort of mascot?

Watts slammed his fists down on the immaculate countertop, gritting his teeth with rage. How dare they do this to him?

* * *

The new facilities were highly unsatisfactory. Polendina’s new role as head of R&D had resulted in their labs being switched, with Polendina in the central tower where Ironwood could be immediately shown any developments while Watts had been bumped to the secondary building.

Unacceptable.

Watts had, of course, altered the monitoring programs that kept tabs on his activities. How foolish they were to put so much trust into his systems after discarding their creator. After all, they were hardly worthy of his greatest accomplishments and loyalty if they were going to prove so faithless. To earn respect, they must show respect. If they weren’t going to show respect…. well then Watts no longer felt a need to adhere so strictly to their hollow codes of conduct based on primitive notions of morality.

Small wonder Polendina’s primitive and goody-two-shoes projects were winning top accolades. The brass hadn’t the stomach to appreciate what Arthur Watts brought to the table.

Idly, he tapped into the monitoring in Polendina’s usurped facility, weighing the benefits of sabotage versus simply letting the project fail on its own. No need to get his hands dirty, Watts decided. Polendina could fail without any help. That would be better, even, proving Watts correct without needing to tip the scales in his favor.

* * *

In between developing his own new projects, Watts kept tabs on what Polendina was working on, noting places where his math had small but crucial errors and opting not to point them out. After all, even such magnanimous assistance as that would doubtless be regarded as spying and sneaking by their small minds.

Served them right if he didn’t help them to his own detriment.

* * *

With the decline of oversight and interest in his activities, Watts found increasing excuses to pour his attention into his side projects, pursuits that were not exactly illegal but were also not exactly legal according to Mantle’s hopelessly moralistic laws.

As he observed the way the mice adapted to their new limbs, he considered how much Ironwood could benefit from such enhancements, increasing his strength and dexterity tenfold, but doubtless his first response to any such demonstration would be to call for guards to arrest Watts so he could stew with his inferior augmentations.

* * *

Watts, as per usual, had lost track of the time and found himself walking home past midnight, coat collar turned up against the bitter wind that scoured Mantle.

“Doctor Watts,” a cheerful voice called.

He turned to find an impish face smiling at him from the mouth of an alley.

“I wonder, good Doctor Watts if my lady could interest you in a meeting. She is most intrigued by your advancements and with your… increased time and availability, would like to broach the subject of patronage.”

Watts raised an eyebrow. “Hardly a usual place for such a proposition, young man.”

“Well, Doctor, you’re the one who worked so late,” the young man said with a wide grin. “The work would be… for someone outside of Mantle, you understand? And strictly… off Mantle’s books.”

Watts considered. “And her name, your lady?”

The young man chuckled and shook his head. “What is in a name, Doctor. She knows of your work and wishes to fund you to pursue your more… intriguing lines of study.”

Watts smiled thinly. “And how does she know of my lines of study?”

The young man smiled and approached, closing the distance between them. “She would prefer to tell you herself, good Doctor Watts. Please, accept the invitation, I think you will find it beneficial for you both.”

“Where and when?”

“You accept?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent.”

Watts’ personal defenses registered a sharp impact and the young man looked surprised.

“Hardly a polite invitation,” Watts remarked as the dart dropped to the ground after impacting his personal shield an inch away from flesh.

“One can never be too careful eh?” the young man said, reaching into a breast pocket and handing over a card. “Truly the man for the job.”

Watts accepted it, glancing down at the elegant creamy stationery of the card. When he glanced up the courier assassin was gone, dart included. Pity that, Watts would have liked to get more of a handle on what sort of organization had approached him.

* * *

The invitation was to his own home the next evening. Watts considered that in fairly poor taste and no small amount of showboating but, then again breaching his defenses would be fairly impressive.

As such, he wrapped up his affairs at the lab on time for once and returned home to wash up and prepare for this mysterious meeting. He had, of course, equipped himself with a full array of his defensive gear hidden away in the crisp lines of his coat.

Watts checked the time, then glanced around his home, wondering if this mystery lady had been knocked out by his defenses and was lying unconscious on the road outside.

“Doctor Watts,” an elegant voice said.

He spun; eyebrows raised in surprise that anyone had managed to get in.

His home seemed… empty at first glance, though the voice had been close.

“Who is it?” he asked softly, fingers spread wide as he brought his defenses online.

“No need for that,” the voice said cheerfully from just behind him.

Watts whirled, hands moving forward to trigger an attack… and found himself held in place.

A strange bulbous shape hovered before him, dark and glistening with a beautiful woman’s face contained within, her skin pale as death that appeared to crack all along the edges, the fissures filled with darkness. Tendrils dangled from the thing, and those had wrapped firm around Watts, imprisoning his limbs. A tentacle curled around his throat, slipping under the collar of his shirt and caressing along his jaw. “A pleasure to meet you, Doctor Arthur Watts,” the woman said.

Watts tried to lean away from the bladed tip of the tendril, but the rest held fast, far stronger than they appeared. “And you must be the lady?”

“Salem,” she said silkily, watching him try and avoid the stroking tendril. “But you may call me ‘my lady.’ Tyrian tells me you passed the test. Well… clearly you did as you are still alive.”

“Tyrian, is that your little messenger?”

“For now. I am interested in your work, Doctor,” she said. Another of the strange things rose from his desk, displaying some of his schematics in its bulbous body. “You will come work for me, and I will give you the resources you so desire.”

The creature loosened its grip on him, leaving not a hair out of place as it withdrew, hovering to keep the face at eye level to him.

“And if I say no you attempt to kill me a second time?” Watts asked, intrigued.

“Of course,” Salem smiled. “No one can know of me until I am ready. If you will not serve, then you must perish. My Seers are more than capable.” Within the thing she gestured, and both of the Seers splayed their dangling tendrils, the light catching on the bladed ends, or were those talons? A type of Grimm it seemed but none like he had ever seen.

“Where do you find these?” Watts asked, leaning in to examine the tendrils, attempting to determine how they hovered so effortlessly. “Can they be taught to project anything?”

“Now, now, Doctor, you can’t expect me to give up all of my secrets before you pass your audition.”

“Audition?”

“Call it a job interview if you will. Explain what you would do with the resources I can provide for you and then I will decide whether you have earned them. For a taste… these Seers are my own creation, and they do whatever I need them to.”

Watts’ eyes widened as he stroked a finger along a tendril. “Remarkable. The Grimm are yours, then. I wondered if there was a single mind behind them.”

“Clever indeed. Come then, show me your work and what you can provide for me. It isn’t often I encounter a mind like yours, particularly one with such… intimate knowledge of how some of the upstart human kingdoms maintain their fragile grasp of power.”

Watts leaned in toward the Seer eagerly. “And do you mean to do something about such disrespect as they show to their betters?”

Her dark eyes were amused as she rested her chin on an elegant hand, black veins stark against the pallid flesh. “I am not their better, Doctor. I am far beyond their understanding. They are mere pawns in an eternal game between myself and my opponent, but I am poised for checkmate at last and his puny huntsmen will fall to my pets. Soon. Will you join my court, or will you fall with the rabble?”

Watts smiled. “I thought you wanted me to audition first?”

Salem gestured, sitting back on her throne, and watching him, one eyebrow lifted. “Dazzle me.”

“Of course, my lady.”


End file.
